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- [00:01]
Narrator
Growing a business sometimes means taking a leap long before you feel ready. That's what Hayden Wadsworth, Capital One business customer and co founder of hydrojug learned when he and his brother Jake launched a reusable water bottle brand from their parents garage. Starting with three colors and a nerve wracking 3,000 unit order, digital ads help them scale fast. 100,000 in year one, 1 million in year two. Quickly outgrowing the garage and pushing them to sign their first warehouse lease. Through that rapid growth, they relied on their Capital One business credit card and cash back rewards on ads spent to help fund the move and keep momentum strong. Learn more@capitalone.com businesscards.
- [00:51]
Ben Goodwin
I like money. I think it's cool. It's not what gets me up out of bed every day. The thing I care about is making a lasting, sustained, positive impact at scale to human health and wellness. Because if I'm building something that can last on the science side, on the product side, on the culture side and on the P and L side, then I'm feeling good about it.
- [01:11]
Mike Hoffman
Today your next move is all about challenger brands. Joining us are two disruptors whose businesses are redefining their categories. Olipop's Ben Goodwin is with us. His functional beverage company is valued at $1.85 billion and has reported more than 400 million in revenue. While disrupting the beverage business, Olipop has also created a cult, earned it a spot on Inc's Best Workplaces list in 2025. Listed Tokmak is revolutionizing home services with NetIC, an AI platform designed for home maintenance. Last year netic announced a 23 million Series B round that values the company at 450 million. I'm Mike Hoffman, Aeron Chief of Inc. Welcome to your next move produced by Inc and Capital One Business. Melissa and Ben are here to explain how to spot opportunities within existing categories with find talent that will support your vision and when to shift strategy as you scale. So Melissa, Ben, let's dive in. So we're here today to talk about
- [02:11]
Interviewer
branding and building a challenger brand more specifically and each of you have done that in interesting and different ways.
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Mike Hoffman
Ben, let's start with you.
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Interviewer
So you are the founder of Olapop and that obviously competes with huge soda brands and other beverage brands.
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Mike Hoffman
When you got started I understand that
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Interviewer
someone said like whatever you do, don't go into like soda, don't go into beverage.
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Mike Hoffman
So what gave you the confidence to
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Interviewer
take on that huge challenge?
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Ben Goodwin
Yeah, thanks for the. You're totally right. So I had a prior venture prior To Olipop, that was in the beverage space, it was actually a prebiotic soda. But that was still the same essential concept of we're gonna take a soda and we're gonna use it as a Trojan horse for healthy ingredients. And I did have an advisor who ran a multi hundred million dollar business. He didn't have a problem with me going to beverage, but he was like, if you make this a soda, you are quote, wasting a gift from God and I am not going to advise you. And I was like, well, I'm doing a soda. And he hung up and I never heard from him again. And at the time, it, on paper, depending on your interpretation of the data, didn't necessarily make sense. So it had lost a bit of market share every year for 10 plus years.
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Interviewer
And you mean soda as a category?
- [03:17]
Ben Goodwin
Soda as a category. And simultaneously you had the most kind of indestructible, robust, largest brands in the world. So it was a little bit of a suicide mission. On paper. The thing that gave me the motivation to do it was I've always been an extraordinarily mission driven founder. That's kind of the only thing that really gets me up at a bed in the morning. And in my head I interpreted the data differently. I said, okay, the decline in soda over time is a byproduct of consumer dissatisfaction with the category. The size of the category though, is an indicator of its longevity and the fact that it's like a cherished American and international tradition. And, and I think there's a real opportunity to effectively meet consumers where they are and give them a healthier option and actually to accelerate that conversion to something healthier. Look, it's a little esoteric and pretentious, but like my life entrepreneurial mission is to elevate human health and consciousness at scale. And so in order to do that, I want to take things that are scaled unhealthy, flip them on their heads, actually insert the health ingredients into them, but then actually go meet consumers where they are. Don't shame them, give them an opportunity to convert their habits. So that has always been my motivator and that's sustained us to this day.
- [04:31]
Interviewer
Terrific. And so, Melissa, Netic is a very different kind of company. You're in sort of B2B marketing, right? Netic is a brand that serves and provides AI services to all kinds of service companies. The plumber, the contractor, the electrician who comes to your home. How did you get the idea for starting this company?
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Mike Hoffman
And how do you approach B2B marketing,
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Interviewer
which is obviously in Some ways similar, but in some ways very different from consumer marketing.
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Melissa Tokmak
We had a different experience than Ben that there wasn't really this Goliath you're going against. If anything, the Goliath is the fact that these industries are forgotten by Frontier Technologies. So I actually, for the past 10 years, I know AI is very popular now, but I have been working and building AI products for the past 10 years in different companies. And for me, the most important thing is can we bring Frontier Technologies to the industries that are the backbone of American economy, that are running our lives every day? Like companies like his or H Vac companies, plumbing companies, consumer wellness, solar, pest, across the board that every consumer and every business must use to continue in life. So that is my mission. And that's how I also grew up with a lot of people who worked in these industries. I am from a very small town in Turkey. That really fueled that mission. But when I came to Silicon Valley for college, one thing that really surprised me was that all of us who made it here were building for people like us. Other developers, right? Other people in the coast and really other tech companies. And to me, if we're able to build these things, it's very important that we build that for the real people. So that was really the mission that started the company. And specifically I focused on these type of essential services because when we got our house, that was the first time I interacted with industries like H vac, plumbing, electric car, automotive. For the first time. I think in Silicon Valley, you interact with them a bit later in life because obviously it's so hard to be able to get a house or to be able to get a car. And you know, I realized how broken it was, the customer experience in a world I can order my food with one click, order my car with one click, the essential services I needed for my home or for my largest possessions, my car or other things really, I could not get it, however much I was willing to pay. So that's how we started and really started working with large enterprises in these industries and rolled out AI products that really automates their interactions with the end user so that they can serve customers like me. You, Ben, immediately, when we do have a need and even before we are faced with these type of issues, you know, disastrous issues like tornado affecting us or our old relatives being affected with no air or plumbing in their homes, almost predict those needs to be able to help beforehand. So we do all of that with AI with these companies.
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Interviewer
Well, that's fascinating.
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Mike Hoffman
So I'm sort of curious. You're starting out, you're building a company,
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Interviewer
you're building a brand as well.
- [07:47]
Mike Hoffman
You have to get those early customers
- [07:49]
Interviewer
to sort of understand you, even though you don't yet have a full reputation.
- [07:52]
Mike Hoffman
How did you, when you're first pitching Olapop to retailers, how do you sort
- [07:57]
Interviewer
of make the pitch and how do you begin to break through?
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Ben Goodwin
Yeah, I mean one of the things that makes a great entrepreneur writ large is right, they have to be really good at interacting with the inevitable. Catch 22 is the inevitable impossible situations. Having a bit of charisma is useful, telling a good story is useful. And early on also typically fairly early on as well, you're going to get your first data back in terms of. So I mean we have a very scrappy story. We found a small DSD in Northern California. What's a dsd, sorry, A direct delivery service. So basically it's a more hands on. They focus on a more regional area and they go into stores, they'll. Smaller DSD distributors may take on a fledgling brand, especially if they're local. Right. So they knew we had a history in beverage, but they're like, ah, we don't know we like it, who knows? But they basically gave us the mission, like go sell into 100 stores and then we'll start to deliver. We sold into like 40 or 50, but we also wore them down with our charm offensive. And then eventually they're like, all right, good enough, we'll start. Then they start putting it on shelves and that's where the data starts to take hold. So you either get your first data that people aren't totally thrilled and you start to try to figure out what's wrong and iterate in our case and it sounds like a humble brag, but it happens to be reality. The second Olipop went on shelves, it started to fly off. I mean there were certain times where even as we started to scale, like our first week in Northern California Whole Foods, I would go into my local Whole Foods and the shelves are bare and I'd be like, where Olipop's supposed to be? And I would go to the back and I remember talking to one buyer who hadn't been there the day that it arrived and he's like, oh yeah, I don't think we got it. And it actually, it had fully sold out in 24 hours, which was such a. Never even happened before that he. So that he didn't even know it was on the shelf. So our early strategy was we went into the natural channel because you tend to Have a slightly more affluent consumer, a slightly more open minded, early adopter consumer. We also have a very legitimate health product. Like we have at this point a pretty large amount of clinical data supporting the health efficacy of the product. And we have an ingredient panel that supports that as well. So you had a consumer that was able to read that packaging and go, oh, okay, this is differentiated. Then they love the flavor profile and it kind of took up from there. So that's how we started to set up shop and get our momentum.
- [10:19]
Mike Hoffman
And Melissa, same question for you.
- [10:20]
Interviewer
So you're working with service businesses. You also mentioned large enterprise.
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Mike Hoffman
Who are your earliest customers and how
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Interviewer
did you convince them that this was an AI service or technology that could really benefit them?
- [10:30]
Melissa Tokmak
The difficulty in our business is that you're not maybe convincing the user, oh, try this thing just now and then decide later if you want to be a multi time customer. These are large contracts, right. And for a group that maybe don't always believe in technology and don't always believe in like you can really deliver this promised land with AI, right? That's really the challenge. If anything, something I did to see is this an area I want to spend my life in helped me get my first customers. How the best founders, the best entrepreneurs know that they're doing this for life. They cannot imagine anything else. I cannot imagine doing anything else in my life. If anything, every single I did in the past 10 years led me to this moment, right with this company. But also, you know, today's world we have a lot of maybe tourists in trying. If I want to build this company and then change their mind a month
- [11:29]
Interviewer
later, you sign up for the service, then you drop it.
- [11:31]
Melissa Tokmak
Exactly. You know, I don't really want to do this anymore as a company founders like it usually does this in today's world. But that was very important to me. Okay, like I am building this, I need to build this for life. And I want to make sure before even having employees, I must know that in me. So the way I started was like, okay, I need to figure out every single thing. So my first industry was really H Vac and in my house I literally created just jobs, fake jobs, et cetera, and kept bringing people in to my house. And I built earlier versions of the product and you know, they were much smaller companies than my actually target customer. But you can't really go to large enterprises without knowing exactly what you're talking about. How do you understand their pain points? I know everything about technology and AI and I'm obviously better at that. But I need to understand their domain. So I would do these things and you know, at the end of the job I would say in the kitchen I have some cookies and like coffee for you. All of you must come here. And I would really ask like hundreds of questions. I befriended these people. I would show up to their work and be like here we have some donuts and I'm going to be here today. And obviously you know, they couldn't reject me because I was already there, had driven multiple hours. Right. And I'd be like, look, I can do anything. Here's you know like my qualifications. Just I'll work for you for free. I have done that for a few months. Really Just let me be here and see how you're operating this business. What's working, what's not working. Then knowing that, okay, I felt good. How these industries work and why what I'm building is actually useful. Not just that I'm over promising something, why is it useful? That's how I reached out to my first enterprise customers that are very innovative because you want your early customers to really be fast innovating with you, giving you feedback, really partner with you. And I am a big believer of in person. So I flew actually my first customer was Pascal Home Services in Arkansas. I got on a plane and went there. I was there at 6am and meeting everybody and showing exactly how it's going to work. And these are the industries where everybody oversells them something. So my attitude, you know, I'm a very blunt person, extremely direct and extremely honest to my own detriment many times. But that is exactly how I want to run my business. And that works with these industries because this is the first time they're really engaging with a company that doesn't oversell and not deliver it exactly. Delivers and goes above and beyond. So we got really amazing success with our early customers with that in numbers and they were very respected in their industries. So our other customers came from our existing customers and that really got our growth, that really accelerating.
- [14:19]
Mike Hoffman
I'm curious, Referral business is like such
- [14:21]
Interviewer
a classic way to grow a company and grow a challenger brand. For you, Ben, was referral business a part of what helped make Olipop the successes become.
- [14:29]
Ben Goodwin
Yeah, 100%. I mean especially very early on. Right. The business model for beverage is high volume, low margin. Right. And so you have to be incredibly strategic around deployment of capital and a lot of your capital ends up getting tied up in the actual product that you're producing and it's all forward loaded and stuff. Like that. So. So word of mouth is super important. So obviously there's certain ways you can leverage that. Especially early on with low cost social, et cetera. We had a really atypically high level of customer advocacy and enthusiasm early on. We got our first taste of that actually during COVID Covid hits 2020. Rightfully, everybody's freaking out because, I mean, we technically launched in late 2018, but I think we're like a million bucks in revenue by the end of 2019. Right. So still very like good progress, but a young business, it could have gone badly. Well, only 0.04% of beverage businesses make it to $10 million in revenue. Right. So like the death rate is super, super high. So then if you throw a once in a century pandemic in the mix, you're like, oh God. And you know, the kind of prevailing thought process that we would have had internally at the time was we're still an impulse purchase. So people going to store for sandwich lunch, they see us, maybe they pick us up. So of course we like, we built a big D2C function to try to take advantage of where we thought the shift would occur in the year. We still ended up doing our full year's projection in revenues in brick and mortar. In fact, we grew by 960% that year, which is absolutely wild. And I was trying to figure out why is this happening and what turned out. And it was like, it's luck. It's like luck meets a good product and hard work. But what was very lucky was for a bunch of the consumers that had grown attached to the brand, we actually were already a staple item for them. So they were clearing the shelf so they had enough for the week until they came back because they could give it to their kids. It made them feel better. They wanted the comfort of a soda product, but they also knew that health was more important than ever and they were feeling the benefits of regular consumption. So we were so lucky that that happened. And all of the DDC revenue sat on top of that. But yeah, I mean, there's nothing. At the end of the day, it's like it's your customers that support your business. They'll tell you if they want you to survive, they'll tell you if they love you or not. And that was the first moment where I was like, whoa, we're on to really differentiated momentum. And we had triple digit growth every year from founding until last year. We still had strong double digit growth. And we're a couple years into profitability now as well. And so that whole trajectory, actually large portions of that trajectory, was built on word of mouth. The product flavor profile really being a good replacement for a lot of people for soda. But also the fact that a lot of our customers actually feel the benefit, which is, you know, not to be cast any aspersions, is a bit differentiated even against the rest of the category where we use much higher quantities of real and functional ingredients that we've done a bunch of research against. And so it's an expensive category, but at least with our product, you actually tangibly feel the benefit. And that has brought a lot of people back over and over again.
- [17:49]
Interviewer
So this is a question for both of you. We'll start with Melissa. As you think about building your company,
- [17:54]
Mike Hoffman
did you think of it as a
- [17:56]
Interviewer
brand, or did you think about your brand attributes from the beginning, or when did that click in? And what are the attributes? How would you describe the brand?
- [18:03]
Melissa Tokmak
We have not thought about the brand from outside actually at all. Even today, you know, everybody asks me, do you have like pr? Do you have this? Do you have that? I don't have any of it. What happened and ties to actually what Ben was talking about, like really unlocking that organic growth. If your customers are talking about you and recommending you, that means more than anything you can do in the world. So for us, it's a little different in B2B, really AI software product. And we were very different in one aspect than anybody else, which is we didn't believe in sales. We are a primarily. I know it sounds crazy when you say it that way, but we did not believe in sales. And we do not want to be a sales culture. We were from the beginning an engineering culture. Right. All of us are actually engineers in the company today to this point, you know, last, we have been around only one and a half years and we have grown over 2,200%. And what is key for us is that to this day, I refused. Until yesterday, I was the only person meeting customers and doing sales. And yesterday our first account executive started.
- [19:18]
Interviewer
Congratulations.
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Melissa Tokmak
That is amazing. Yeah, exactly. And we're growing that, but very, very thoughtfully. Normally you would see companies like us to have 60 to 80% of their companies being account executives in sales. I think to me, what that signals about us that we're very engineering and product oriented is that we must understand you so well that the product works and the product makes customers so happy that they are telling their other friends and other companies in the industry, many of whom they actually compete with. That was really amazing for us. And that really comes through when we think about the brand of the company, right. It's actually drawing from that culture for an engineering and product company and also from my background, right. I have really given my life to AI and every step of the way, like possible. And my really upbringing and respect for these industries, just having grown in a village in Turkey and only making it to my own American dream when I came here. And some of these companies, actually all of them, all of these founders of the companies I work with truly are the best entrepreneurs that I have met with. And I have met amazing entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, of course, but the way that they really care about their customers and their companies and every step of the way we make sure our brand reflects that respect.
- [20:47]
Mike Hoffman
Do you get feedback from customers or
- [20:49]
Interviewer
prospects who say, I mean this seems great, but like can I just use Gemini or can I just use Claude or can I just use any of the big players in AI? And if so, how do you counter that?
- [21:00]
Melissa Tokmak
Yeah, definitely they can ask that or they could be like, oh, could I just put this together with very easily with this solution or like this foundation model. And actually that attitude that I was telling you about just being super straightforward really works there. I would say, you know what, here are the ways you can try. I would help go out of my way and be like, you could use it this way. But obviously in our industries that doesn't really work because today in foundational models and even these companies are using it more as a way to engage day to day to ask different questions where you don't have to be so worried that the answer is right. But when you're serving your end customers and it has to do exactly the accurate thing each time, not only in terms of knowledge, but also your operational rules as a company, as a billion dollar revenue company, right? And that is a completely different game. Think about like your experience when you're engaging with your phone, asking all these questions all of us use now daily, right? How many times is it wrong? And even then there is no operational rules of a business, right? It's just actually conversing. So what we bring into these industries, it might be good for consumer solutions. Try it and use it. But how can you have an enterprise level accuracy doing things with your customers in a way that you would trust your best employee? And how do you get there not years after training that employee immediately within weeks, Right? That's the difference. But my approach is usually, if anything, I take a lot of time of my day and any moment to be able to help people please if you want to try something, I'll help you try it because I know that they'll really come back for that peace of mind and the growth of their business. Right. That's exactly what I would do, like a business owner myself. So I tried to approach it that way.
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Interviewer
Well, you may not have a sales culture exactly, but that was a really good sales pitch. But I'm curious for you Ben, do
- [23:01]
Mike Hoffman
you think of Olipop as having a sales culture or what does your sales
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Interviewer
organization look like and how did they represent the brand to the marketplace?
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Ben Goodwin
Yeah. So you know, an overlap as I'm listening probably between our businesses or at least the mentality is. So like as the co founder and as the formulator, the depth of my background I've had to obviously become like quite dispersed in my areas of expertise or relative expertise. But more of my historical background sits on supply chain science, formulation, that kind of thing.
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Melissa Tokmak
Thing.
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Ben Goodwin
And correspondingly, you know, when I think about like our qa, our quality assurance function, our R and D function at different infrastructural aspects of the business. We have like platinum grade capabilities internally. And you're right with many different businesses they tend to have, it's a bit more of a shift, but it also ends up reflecting in the P and L. We have been profitable for two years. We're adding EBITDA every single year. We're very, very, very close to double digit and we've got a lovely trajectory over time. We're starting to catch efficiencies against SG&A. We're starting to cast efficiency against all sorts of cost structures, yada, yada yada. So correspondingly, when I think about places where you can juice up the top line but you're not quite as worried about the sustainability of the business. I think about things like going hog wild on trade spend. Right. Just promotion in store, going hog wild in marketing. Right, right. There's a reason why I haven't done a bunch of super bowl ads because that's a 10 to 20 million dollars proposition. There's a whole bunch of places I can reinvest that back into my business. And it's also important to me, look, I want to drive more aware brand awareness, of course, always right. More awareness is better, more trial is better. We also have the highest repeat rate in the category. We see our buy rate going up. So our underlying fundamental metrics around loyalty, we've been able to keep a 10% price premium to the rest of the category because we have a really high quality product. So a lot of our investment goes there. What that means though, is that we are running a slightly different financial model than what is oftentimes typical for the startup beverage industry, right? Because the rarefied group that actually makes it that I expressed earlier, oftentimes folks with a little more of an MBA or VC mentality building a beverage company are building it to flip it. I call it the house flip model, right? So they're like, we don't care if it works. We just want the gross margin to be nice and healthy so we can dump a bunch of cash into marketing and trade spend. We can stick it right down the customer's throats and stick it in the front of the store. And as long as we can sell it before people find out that we're full of shit, we accomplish our goals. And like, that's what happened to the vitamin waters of the world. That's happened to a bunch of different really promising businesses that end up going and sell to acquirers for like large amounts of money. I like money. I think it's cool. It's not what gets me up out of bed every day. It's not why I've been an entrepreneur in one of the hardest categories in the world for the past 20 years. The thing I care about is making a lasting, sustained, positive impact at scale to human health and wellness. I care about having a trojan horse that goes in and actually is around 10 years from now. And whether we go public, whether we exit, it doesn't really matter because if I'm building something that can last on the science side, on the product side, on the culture side and on the P and L side, then I'm feeling good about it. So look, we seek to have high quality relationships with retailers. We seek to be there. We have a lot we know because we've done research with our retailers. We are a very trusted cornerstone brand for the category. So I of course want to continue and expand that that we've done a decent job communicating from a marketing and brand standpoint. Our viz ID work has always been a. We actually have room for improvement against our marketing. I'm rolling a bunch of cool stuff out this year. I'm really excited about it, but just for my founding principles and again I feel like some overlap actually. My father was a commercial plumber, ran a commercial plumbing business. But it's always been important to me that the core of the business and the product is the thing that then you build around and that I think gets you more longevity. But ultimately it serves the customer for the longest period of time. And I need my whole staff thinking about that.
- [27:16]
Mike Hoffman
Well, I'm curious.
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Interviewer
So you've both raised money. You raised 43 million. I think you raised 50 million.
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Ben Goodwin
I raised more than, well, 50 million
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Interviewer
in your latest round.
- [27:23]
Ben Goodwin
Yes.
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Interviewer
And I'm curious, raising money, outside money does bring those pressures and often a company raises a lot of money and does do a big marketing push or something like that.
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Mike Hoffman
Was that part of your calculation?
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Interviewer
How did you talk to investors about that? And what are you investing the money? And Melissa, let's start with you.
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Melissa Tokmak
Yeah, we're a full venture business, right. In AI companies like that, from the beginning you really raised. I actually for some time like did not take any institutional money. The initial early investors were really people I worked for. My friends that are founders like Alexander Wang, who's the CEO of Scale, whom I worked directly. He was the first check. And then obviously we raised our seed A and B from Founders Fund, Greylock and Hanabi. But I have worked with these people. Many, many like they were also some of them are investors at Scale that I continuously inter, you know, interacted with. Mike from Hanabi was a board member at Scale now as Mike Wolpe is a board member in ours. So from the beginning we have built this as a venture business and that's also in tech is necessary because the goal like we were talking about maybe on Ben's business, the immediate goal is not profitability, right. If I am, which I think we were even early on, really almost breaking even. But if I'm doing that, I'm not being aggressive enough in my goals, right. In types of businesses like I am in and technology and AI, the whole point is growth and how can you really expand in industries and within your markets with your customers. So that's why we have raised. For me what's important is not just raising money though. It's two things who and how much. It's actually you touched upon a little bit on the second, but I'll start with the first one. To me, I call them my bench. Building my bench was very important. Right. Right now also like for very good companies, capital is in abundance. Especially in Silicon Valley. It's extremely important who you work with. And I trust these people and I worked with them many, many years. I knew that they let me be, they let me be the crazy I am invest in the business, really think about the long term growth and they have earned my trust over many, many years. So that was a very easy decision. So in my day to day it's really not maybe what you would Imagine with investors and like the company. Oh no, you know, there's these discussions about they're like really driving me hard on how to make decisions. Right. I wouldn't work with people like that. There's a reason I'm building that company, this company, not them. Right. So they do trust me in terms of that long term growth and how am I investing in today's world? That brings me to the second we actually, unlike many other startups of today, you're seeing crazy valuations, crazy round sizes. Now seed is really like what was serious C before specifically, I actually refused to raise a lot of money. So even in our latest round, you know, out of so many offers, even for like very large rounds and different valuations, to me this is important to build a business with strong fundamentals and that means you raise how much you need. You have to make revenue, you have to make really healthy margins so that you can really build a business. You're growing into that valuation and keep growing as you go versus you're playing these valuation games just to feel a little bit higher ego. We definitely don't do that. And that actually affects something very important in today's world. In frontier tech today, actually, the biggest top thing in my mind is not, not getting more customers because I know as I'm building an amazing product, I'm getting that already. It's talent. If you really raise in these insane valuations where there's not really any more room to grow, like reasonably. Right. You're also not attracting the talent I want. I want entrepreneurs themselves. I want people who really have the urgency, who have the ownership. We call it Our Valley is run through walls to win, win and lose sleep over almost perfect. I want that kind of people. And guess what? Those kind of people don't really join companies that are already so big or so highly valued that there's no upside. Right. They want to feel and be treated like founders. So every single step of the way, even in our fundraising, that what guides me, not really anything else.
- [31:57]
Interviewer
What would you say, Ben?
- [31:58]
Ben Goodwin
Yeah. So again, there's a lot of ways where I'm resonating with what you're laying out. I mean, so for example, like you called out the 50 we raised from JP Morgan's growth equity fund, who actually I really love working with them. And we again, more humble bragging incoming. But we have always been oversubscribed for our rounds. That's been really helpful for a couple ways and I can touch on them briefly. But at the end of the day, the thing that Made me on board with taking the check from JP Morgan first. First kudos to them. That came correct with the valuation in the term sheet. So I didn't have to. It was like, all right, you guys are playing to win here. But two, spending time with their team, they made it clear to me and us that their foundational model is they have this significant preference to invest in mission driven companies led by mission driven founders because it's actually part of their thesis this, that those businesses outperform in the long run. So I was like, great. There's alignment here historical to that. I've had a bit of a strategy. One is if you know someone's an just don't take their money, right? That's easier said than done in the early days because, well, okay, the first step is the people you want to work with will take time to learn about your mission and your business. And the people you don't want to work with, they'll make, make their personalities known. Then you go through this weird molting phase where all of a sudden you're an attractive business and so now everybody's nice. And so then you got to figure out, okay, who's who. And so then I use a bit of an ego rubric, right. So interestingly, I started to track the people who started trying to build up my ego to get a check in the door. Those are the same folks that typically then will come for you when things are stressful, right? So when you have dysfunctional investor dynamics makes, they'll kind of work their way in. And then when there's a moment of stress for the business, which is 1,000% inevitable, it's how many and when and how severe, right. They'll oftentimes apply additional pressure or try to take advantage of that situation. If you continue to default back to people who are focused on the business, focused on the mission. I think you made a great point. They believe in the operators, they're investing in the operators. And you can stack as much as you can in that regard. You're way higher to end up in a good spot. The other thing that I did or I did with the team because of historical experiences is, and this is, you know, this might work for some folks, it requires some high level of interest in your rounds to pull this off. So this might not be available for everybody, but I made sure, and this is something similar to what you said, I made sure that I had multiple touch points with that investor before I let them take a meaningful part of any given round. So the gentleman who led our Series B, they put in four different smaller checks before they got up to the Series B. And then we allowed them to lead and jump on the board. And they've been great partners. JP Morgan actually put in a check or two prior to their round as well. And so you're inevitably going to go through the natural cycles and stressors in your business and they're going to be along for the ride but without enough power to take control if things get stressful. And you just watch how they behave when the chips are down or when an opportunity presents itself. And basically the folks who show up and I don't like where they're coming from, I say hey, thanks for your input. And then I just. And the people who show up consistently and are helpful and supportive, you say cool. And then when the time comes they're really at the top of the docket. There's something extraordinarily toxic about the sociopathy with which most American business business world is money and power over everything else. Businesses and corporations should be providing maximum value to the people who use their services. And when they do a really great job sustainably without screwing anybody over, then their reward should be we're going to make the public makes them a successful business. So that's a model. I prefer that model. I think that that's how we should be thinking and acting as much as we can. And if the finance forces that are in your business take too much control over the creative vision, setting and execution, or you just have people who have internalized too much of that mentality, then inevitably it's going to end up pushing the business in a direction that may be fine for some people, but is not what I'm going to do. I just like.
- [36:41]
Interviewer
It's a very spicy take in this day and age. I'm curious, Melissa, you mentioned talent and I'd love to talk about that for a minute.
- [36:48]
Mike Hoffman
So within your company culture, how would you describe your culture and how does
- [36:52]
Interviewer
that support your positioning in the marketplace? What skills do you look for when you're hiring?
- [36:56]
Melissa Tokmak
For us it's very again, the whole company's vision is to be able to build an autonomous enterprise, right? To be able to do that. We focus on revenue generating functions in these companies first because it brings them immediately value. But that means we're really handling really heavy workflows end to end in mission critical scenarios with AI. Sounds easy. It's very difficult and there's only like really very small group of people in the world today that have deployed AI solutions in real world. In production setting. So for us, that's very important that you have done that or you are able to do that. So I kind of divide it as like, we have been an engineering and product led company. It's actually majority of the company is engineering. So for us, we're always hiring engineering and the rest we always develop around that need. If we're growing right with our engineering teams, then you build different support functions internally in the company. So I'll focus on for this question. On the engineering side, for us, the key thing is, is how do you. Are you craving to build tangible results in the world or are you a builder in your room? Right. We really care about those people who want to get out there, who want to make sure not just I have built beautiful code for this. No. Is this being used and is this being helpful to the people that I'm giving it to? And that's a different mindset. Right. The first layer, we really look at skills. Without skills, it doesn't get anywhere. We actually have very kind of a difficult interview process where you do various technical interviews and then at the end of it, you actually have to come to our office in person for at least a day or two, build something with us together from scratch, and then you have to present that you're understanding that to the whole company and really engage in that question. Right. Or how did you think about this? What would you do differently? What if I told you and you can ask questions to do to the company? Right. So after you pass the skill set, it's really about that fit, the cultural fit about ownership, urgency and the value you put on impact. Right? To me, that's a combination of things. There's no formula for that. Like still to this day I do that interview. Really digging in. Like, what is really prompting you to be here today? Like, what are the hardest things you have done in life when nobody forced you? It doesn't even have to be work related. Right. What are the things that you really push to yourself because you just cannot sit still? That's really what we're looking for. And the combination is the magic. And you know, a lot of the times you do come across a choice because it can get intense because we're growing really fast. But if you really care about all of this, the hiring comes from behind, right? It's lagging. So what happens? And we actually made a decision to the company. I made this decision, but I really talked to my team about it, that we will never hire just because we're feeling like, you know, overwhelmed with the amount of work. Because if you do that and you lower your bar then you can ever fix it. Right. We are as a company willing to take that up in the short term to bring really incredible people who care about what we do so we can grow in the long term as a company that loves to work with each other. And to that testament, you know, actually maybe one third or close to half of the company have worked with me before in my teams or with me at scale. So now they're here and growing our team and we're going to grow from there.
- [40:46]
Interviewer
Great, great.
- [40:46]
Ben Goodwin
And Ben, that's very cool actually zooming out out product market fit. Product market traction is crucial then systems and a product that can scale. So you need those two things and then everything else is your team and your talent. Right? 100% of everything else is your team and your talent. And for sure if you are a highly attractive business, you do get to the point where high levels of skill have to be table stakes. I think we, we had over 300,000 applications last year to work at Ollie. So my people team did the math. It is now statistically easier to become a professional NBA player than it is to get a job at Olipop, which is crazy. So you've got really great talent access, a lot of really talented folks coming in and that's where some of the stuff you were talking about really then starts to matter. I probably have a slightly different blend that I'm looking for, but I'm at a slightly different life stage also where I'm definitely looking, I'm looking for folks right now, now in the particular life stage I'm at that have a successful track record of high intensity, high growth environments but hopefully also have some really great scaled experience. So we can really think very clearly as we go towards a billion dollars in revenue. How do we make sure to amplify all of the kind of magical cultural dynamics that we had early on and scale them so we don't lose them so we can actually like reinforce them structurally. I am also really always looking. I have always tried to build a environment that was atypically high trust and high eq and there's an enormous amount of data on the disproportionate execution that you can drive and the sustainability of that. When you have leadership and team members that are high iq, it's. And we've got a bunch of cool systems that we have to promote that. So three years ago working with my executive coach we started something called Olipop Leadership University. It's really cool. Like we have training year long. We have a summit in person summit and then we have year long curriculum training from managers up to me. Right. And I did it as much because I need to grow as much as anybody else in the company needs to grow. But right there's that ugly middle area where managers are subject matter experts but now have to start managing people for the first time. That's a whole thing to train against. And you need people who understand that mindset and psychology transfers via behaviors into output. And so what is your systems that you're developing to set that as a clear expectation and then to have continuous training models around creating that pipeline.
- [43:27]
Interviewer
Okay, so let's go to. We've got just a few minutes left. So let's do a lightning round.
- [43:31]
Mike Hoffman
Your company is fully remote. Your company is fully in person.
- [43:34]
Interviewer
Do I have that?
- [43:35]
Ali Donaldson
Yep.
- [43:35]
Mike Hoffman
What are the immediate pros for why
- [43:37]
Interviewer
you are the way you are remote.
- [43:39]
Ben Goodwin
So we don't have to have an expensive building in San Francisco. Right. Which is where we were founded. Two people talk about diversity. I'm a fan. I think psychological and geographic diversity though is just as important. So I want somebody working in Mississippi who can tell me if the idea I came up with on the west coast is stupid. And we get that when we're remote.
- [43:58]
Melissa Tokmak
Speed and productivity. Today as a young startup we have to move so fast that any issue we have to solve or any creative brainstorming we can do. It takes me less than five seconds to call people into one room. And by the end of the night you actually have a breakthrough. Cool.
- [44:16]
Interviewer
Trickiest role to build out or function to build out.
- [44:19]
Ben Goodwin
And why it took us a really long time to get our people leadership, our HR people leadership function. Right. Because I've always been looking for someone who's like a real, real business minded business partner but still understands managing talent, building culture and can also operate at a really high level that's always been difficult to find. We hired a phenomenal woman, shout out Rosemary, who's been killing it this year. But that easily took four to five years to get right. Which is crazy.
- [44:46]
Melissa Tokmak
I will say sales. And it's because we're looking for something different. We're looking for people who do have the incessant curiosity to understand the product and our industries. Not just focus on maybe traditional aerial. Right. Like you only focus on the revenue, whatever it takes without understanding problems many times. Hence it's something we're more thoughtful about.
- [45:09]
Interviewer
And when you're building a company that's a challenger brand, you're sort of the David going up against Goliath. But there comes a point when actually, you know, other people are challenging you. Have you hit that point and what has that been like?
- [45:20]
Ben Goodwin
Oh, for sure. I mean, the functional soda category hit $2 billion last year, which actually had hit it two years faster than energy did in the United States. States. Look, the biggest issue for us is just different tactics, different mentalities, sustainability. I do not mind at all that there are other successful players in the space. In fact, you need multiple brands to make the category grow. What I care about is that the category ends up serving customers in a real healthy way for a really long period of time. Some of the other strategies that are being used are much more shortsighted. So that's the part that bothers me. But I am thrilled that it's a big and vibrant category.
- [45:59]
Mike Hoffman
And what about you as you build
- [46:00]
Interviewer
Nettic, Are you looking at people who are chasing you?
- [46:02]
Melissa Tokmak
I actually do mind. I don't want other winners in any way or shape in the world. But the way I get there is quite probably different. I just don't focus on others. I do believe the way you become the winner, ultimate winner, is that you just focus on your product and the value to your customers and you must know what's going on in the industry and like be aware of it, but solely day in and out, every morning, every night, every second, every second that you're awake, you must just focus on your product and your customers.
- [46:40]
Mike Hoffman
Great. And last question.
- [46:41]
Interviewer
Obviously the name of the show is your next move. So for you and your business, what's your next move?
- [46:46]
Ben Goodwin
We are in a really interesting moment where we had a phenomenal year last year. We're going to do a lot of investing in our marketing function. We have some really cool innovation coming out and we have some cool options ahead of us that we're going to prep for.
- [46:59]
Narrator
Great.
- [47:00]
Melissa Tokmak
We're really focusing on our industry expansion. We went from incredible companies in H Vac like Pascal Hoffman Heartland Home Services to more Pest Lawn consumer wellness companies like the Bay Club across the board. And we're really expanding to more essential services industries. That's really the focus.
- [47:20]
Interviewer
Melissa, Ben, thanks so much and we'll be back with this conversation shortly.
- [47:23]
Mike Hoffman
And now it's time for when your
- [47:25]
Narrator
business starts to grow. Sometimes the biggest leap is believing you're ready for the next one. That's what Emily Worden, Capital one business customer and jewelry maker discovered when her new storefront drew lines out the door every weekend. Record sales made it clear that it was time to scale and investing in a full natural diamond collection meant a major upfront cost. With her Capital One Business card, she had the confidence and cash back support to make that investment and meet rising demand. Learn more@capitalone.com business cards the people Playbook.
- [48:06]
Mike Hoffman
No one likes delivering negative feedback or criticism, but business leaders need to strike a balance between employee recognition and performance management to create healthy work environments. Today, Jason Krieger, vp, Head of Customer Management at Capital One Business, is here to talk about how leaders deliver performance feedback that drives results without hurting motivation. Welcome Jason.
- [48:28]
Jason Krieger
Thanks for having me.
- [48:29]
Mike Hoffman
So we hear a lot about the value of employee recognition and that's important. But what is the risk of failing to address significant performance issues?
- [48:36]
Jason Krieger
Feedback should be an always on endeavor, just like recognition delivered almost immediately or next day day. I like to set up time if needed and open by saying something like I was hoping I could give you some feedback based on the meeting we were in together yesterday. I'm giving it to you because I know it will help you achieve your goals of X, Y and Z and I believe you're capable of achieving those goals.
- [48:58]
Mike Hoffman
As a leader, how do you decide when someone needs encouragement versus when they need clear correction? And what are the signals that it's time to step in?
- [49:06]
Jason Krieger
Yeah, I mean I listen. I would ask if this is an employee who reports to you, in which case it's definitely your responsibility, or do they report to someone else, in which case it's that leader's responsibility and probably worth checking in with them before you give them any feedback. In some cases you may ask that leader if you want to deliver it, and maybe they prefer that you deliver it. Encouragement and correction don't need to be different though. Let's use an example. You're in a sales call with one of your account managers and they're getting good buying signals from your customer, but they leave the meeting without a hard close and instead they say something to the customer like hey, maybe I'll follow up with you in a week. Employees want to learn and grow. They will welcome the feedback.
- [49:46]
Mike Hoffman
And what are some ways to address performance or conflict directly without creating defensiveness or disengagement? Especially when you're dealing with senior team members or big personalities.
- [49:57]
Jason Krieger
So whenever I'm about to give feedback that is corrective in nature or addresses performance issues, I begin with something like the following I want to share some feedback with you today. My dreaded image is that you think I am not happy with your work work or that you have done something wrong and get defensive My desired image is you see my giving you feedback as my interest in your long term success because I believe you're the right person to accomplish the goals that we have set out to achieve together. And so by sharing your desired image, you're telling them that you have their back. This technique works almost every time.
- [50:28]
Mike Hoffman
And what does effective performance feedback look like in organizations where expectations are already really high and people aren't beginners?
- [50:36]
Jason Krieger
More experienced employees may need more nuanced coaching or feedback. But it looks pretty similar across associates regardless of level. In high performing organizations or those where employees have high experience levels, employees are often thinking about how they get ahead or their next promotion or hit that next quota payout tier. And in these circumstances, I like to ground the feedback in a way that shows them that I think the thing I'm about to address may hold them back. And I want to help them unblock their blockers.
- [51:01]
Mike Hoffman
And after one of these tough conversations, what should happen next?
- [51:05]
Jason Krieger
Yeah, I mean, conclude each conversation or feedback session with clear next steps and a plan to follow up. Then be sure to do that. So discuss what needs to change and what success looks like, as well as when you'll meet again to follow up on progress. Lack of follow up sends a clear message to the team that they might not be supported in the way that they need. And so in addition, make sure you document the feedback as well and send it to the associate post conversation and ask them to reply that it was a representative documentation of the conversation.
- [51:32]
Mike Hoffman
Jason, thanks so much for being with us today and for helping us understand how to give better feedback.
- [51:37]
Jason Krieger
Yeah, thanks for having me, Mike.
- [51:38]
Mike Hoffman
So next up, we'll break down a critical strategy that helped today's guests establish their company's brands.
- [51:53]
Ali Donaldson
Thanks, Mike. I'm Ali Donaldson. I'm a staff reporter here at Inc. And I'm here with Rita McGrath for a deeper conversation on how to position new categories and get customers to buy in. Thanks for being here, Rita.
- [52:06]
Rita McGrath
It's a pleasure.
- [52:07]
Ali Donaldson
So Ben and Melissa both entered spaces dominated by legacy players, deeply entrenched consumer habits. What's the most critical strategic decision that founders face when positioning themselves to create an entirely new category?
- [52:23]
Rita McGrath
I think the most significant thing they need to think about is to use a phrase Clayton Christensen used to use is what's the job that your ultimate customer is trying to get done and how are you going to help help them get that job done better than the existing incumbents? And you know, if you think about it, incumbents carry with them a lot of baggage. You know, they may be very successful, they may be very well funded, but they've also got a lot of legacy. And sometimes technology or social mores or regulations evolve in such a way that even a small player can make significant inroads because they don't have to deal with all the legacy.
- [52:59]
Ali Donaldson
What sort of signals or metrics show that an industry is ripe for disruption?
- [53:04]
Rita McGrath
So let me maybe define disruption first, because I think it's a important to have a common understanding of that. Innovation is disruptive when it does two things. It used to be really complicated to do xyz, now it's easy. It used to be really expensive to get this result. Now it's much more affordable. That means an ordinary person can get in. And that's where the growth of a disruptive technology can really take off.
- [53:25]
Ali Donaldson
And what should founders prioritize and what are some of the common mistakes that you see founders making?
- [53:32]
Rita McGrath
I think I would draw a page out of Brian Chesky of Airbnb's book, and he said, what you want is a not 10,000 customers. What you want is the first hundred customers that absolutely love what you're doing. And if you can get that first hundred customers really understand what their needs are, really understand what's going to cause them to love your product, then you can grow. I think a lot of entrepreneurs, especially ones that are venture backed, try to get too big too fast before they really understand what customer need. They're actually addressing.
- [54:03]
Ali Donaldson
Ben and Olipop, really heavily invested in consumer education, about digestive health, in wellness. Melissa, on the other hand, was very passionate, adamant about making every sales call herself. How should founders balance those sorts of investments in consumer education versus product promotion?
- [54:24]
Rita McGrath
Oh, that's a great question. Well, I think it depends on what the outcome is. You're trying to get the consumer to drive. So in Ben's case, he's trying to get people to leave behind an old consumption habit and adopt a new consumption habit. So he's really got to make the case for why that, why you should do that. Why should you put the energy into doing something different than what you've done your whole life? Right. In the case of more of a B2B thing, what you're really trying to do is deeply understand the system that you're trying to change, which is I'm going to really shift this really traditional old system that's been the way it's been for decades into something that's very different.
- [54:59]
Ali Donaldson
How should founders think about identifying and reaching early adopters, especially when, when they're pioneering a New category.
- [55:07]
Rita McGrath
I think what founders need to think about is what are the behaviors that separate one kind of customer from another. So what you want to do is find what is the behavior that's going to cause this particular kind of customer to gravitate towards my offering. And then you just laser focus, hone in on the ones that you really want to reach. And I would always look for people that are dissatisfied for some reason with the end customer incumbent, where the incumbent is ignoring them or not paying attention or charging too much or being too difficult to work with, that creates your opening.
- [55:40]
Ali Donaldson
Do you have any additional thoughts on strategies for educating consumers?
- [55:45]
Rita McGrath
I think consumer education really begins with understanding where they're spending their time. So is it on social media? Is it with their friends? So you want to kind of think about where the customer is, and then what's the messaging that I want to get through? And then a lot of it is show, don't tell. You know, really get the product or get the service or the offering into people's hands so that they can really experience the benefit that you're offering them.
- [56:10]
Melissa Tokmak
Rita, thank you for being here.
- [56:11]
Rita McGrath
It's a pleasure.
- [56:12]
Ali Donaldson
Mike, back to you now.
- [56:14]
Mike Hoffman
One of the goals of the show is to connect our audience with founders like you. And so it's time for viewer questions. And here's the first viewer question. How do you make sure your team has what it needs to truly push the industry forward and keep innovating? Melissa, let's start with you.
- [56:26]
Melissa Tokmak
Pushing the industry forward starts with knowing the industry. So for us, one key aspect is really focusing on our earliest customers, really understanding every step of the way. If you're joining our team as an engineer, we'll make sure within your first month, you will literally physically visit a customer anywhere in America, North America, that we are really deploying to understand their pain points, understand the people, understand the industry. We also supplemented that with hiring from the industry. Actually, one of our amazing deployment strategists, the earliest one, has joined us from our first customer after rolling out Netic in that company. She was so amazed with the results that she wanted to do that for everybody else. So that's what it starts. But of course, as the company grows, you want to make sure that that cycle grows itself. Right. And that all becomes about, okay, how are you building an internal system for them to give that feeling, that urgency, ownership, and the knowledge to the people that are coming down the pipe?
- [57:32]
Interviewer
Great.
- [57:32]
Mike Hoffman
Ben, how about you?
- [57:33]
Ben Goodwin
So I could probably spend way too long on this topic to try to consolidate it down as Much as I can. One, I think you need a compelling narrative arc in terms of what it is exactly that your company and your team is doing. Who are they be being while they're executing in the industry and in the category. So for example, we've spent millions of dollars on on human clinical trials and we have a relationship with Purdue building out our research data. So I can go to my team and say we have an entire science and medical department which is extremely unusual for beverage. When we go out and talk about how we're shifting the world, we're actually delivering real value to consumers. We're actually being very disruptive against soda. Here are all the proof of points then. The second piece I think really relates to the culture. Making sure you've got a blended culture. It's not an entitlement culture. It's not a command and control culture. People feel that they're treated with respect like human beings. There's a mission they're fighting for. It's always been important to me that the core of the business and the product is the thing that then you build around and that I think gets you more longevity but ultimately it serves the customer prolonged period of time and I need my whole staff thinking about that.
- [58:42]
Mike Hoffman
When you sort of look across your
- [58:43]
Interviewer
your category and and the market, how
- [58:46]
Mike Hoffman
do you spot opportunities, whether large or
- [58:48]
Interviewer
small, that ENT players or incumbent players
- [58:51]
Mike Hoffman
overlook and how do you exploit them? Ben, we'll start with you.
- [58:54]
Ben Goodwin
So cool example. One of the unintended by products of us investing really heavily in research is it's opened up a really cool gateway for us into basically insurance and existing insurance networks. We are a part of the supplemental benefits offerings to over 20 million Americans on their existing Medicare and Medicare Advantage insurance plans. You increase accessibility. You're targeting high needs groups which drives the mission forward. You are underlying the credibility, the functional empirical credibility of your offering. And it's kind of cool because people are like oh, it's like a soda. It's something I actually want to drink. It's something that I would go buy at the store or buy from my kids. And now I'm getting it discounted or completely subsidized through my insurance. And now it's opened up a lot of really intriguing doorways where which with the advent of GLP1 drugs with certain administrative changes are going to be more and more relevant moving into the future.
- [59:49]
Mike Hoffman
That's fascinating. Also, you'll have the last word. So how do you spot and seize opportunities that bigger players overlook?
- [59:55]
Melissa Tokmak
Usually when you miss an opportunity, it's because you have put so much distance between you, the builders of the product, and the customers. People tell you immediately, the key is in listening what they might want. The important part, though, is having the courage to stop that and be like, can we back up for a second? It's not about what you want in this moment. We'll get that. But what is the problem? Like, don't tell me the solution. Why do you want that? What is it? What is the problem? If you can distill to that and continue to do that at scale, you spot opportunities, whether you're the smaller, scrappier startup or you're a larger company. The key is focusing on the problem and keep that. Always keep an eye on that distance you're creating between you and the people who are using your product day to day.
- [60:55]
Mike Hoffman
Melissa Tokmak, Founder and CEO of Netic and Ben Goodwin, the co founder, CEO and chief formulator of Olipop. Thanks so much for being with us today.
- [61:02]
Melissa Tokmak
Thank you for having us and thank you for watching.
- [61:05]
Mike Hoffman
We hope today's conversation was insightful in thinking about how your business can compete in crowded markets and industries. Join us next time for more business leaders, candid conversations and the strategies you need to make your next move. I'm Mike Hoffman, Aeron Chief of Inc. Thanks for watching and we'll see you next.